Tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana remained without power Wednesday, more than a week after deadly storms leveled trees and knocked down power lines across the region.
Northern Indiana Public Service Co., the area’s sole utility, has said its crews have been working nonstop to fix the outages and has restored power to 285,000 customers since Aug. 11. But the utility said 85,000 customers were still without power as of Wednesday morning, including more than 22,000 in Gary, where residents have lined up at community centers for hot meals and chances to charge their phones.
Jeremy Spurrier, a 51-year-old safety manager at a wastewater plant, said he is fortunate he has a generator to power the home he shares with his girlfriend and daughter in the town of Portage, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. But the generator is expensive – it goes through about $75 worth of gas a day – and Spurrier said all of the food in his refrigerator has spoiled, forcing the family to rely on nonperishables like soup. Spurrier, who has diabetes, has had to drive to Illinois to get ice to keep his insulin usable.
“If I run out of ice, that’s several hundred dollars of insulin just ruined,” he said.
Spurrier said a NIPSCO representative told him to expect to be without power for nearly another week – the utility was hoping to restore power to his home by Aug. 25.
He said neighbors with generators have chained them to prevent thefts, while those without generators have been forced to either move in with others who have power or rely on community food distribution sites that have sprung up.
Gary, a majority-Black city, has been especially hard hit, with some residents voicing frustration that the city was being ignored.
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton acknowledged that locals were “frustrated and exhausted” but said more than 600 linemen were working to restore power in the city.
“NIPSCO has never ceased or stopped working in the city of Gary. … I want to reiterate this is clearly not just a Gary situation. It is a northwest Indiana situation,” Melton said.
A 4-year-old boy, three men and three women were among those who had died since the storms began Aug. 11, said Liz Woods, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security.
In a statement Tuesday, NIPSCO called the destruction “unprecedented and widespread,” and said crews from around the country have arrived to help repair downed wires, broken poles and damaged equipment. Authorities said that someone fired upon a NIPSCO vehicle over the weekend while it was making repairs in Gary, prompting officials to have to increase security for NIPSCO crews.
In Whiting, Indiana, Myra Carden, 74, said her home wasn’t damaged by the storm – “not even a chair was blown over in the yard.” But she was in her second blackout Wednesday.
Carden, her son and their three dogs lost power for more than two days last week. Then the electricity went out again Tuesday.
“More than once I have put in an outage report,” she said. ”All I get back is, ‘You already put in a report.’ Well, what do you want me to do? … This doesn’t make sense. Of course I’m not a lineman; I’m a paralegal.”
Carden uses a generator to keep the refrigerator humming but only when someone’s home to monitor it.
“We have a deep freeze in the garage packed full with beef and chicken. I’m sure everything will be thrown away,” she said.
